You may have noticed the growing number of people you meet who are from different countries. If you’re attending college, many of your lecturers and fellow students may be working and studying a long way from their home country. If you’re working in a multinational organisation, you may have an opportunity to visit, or transfer, to a site in a different country or be part of a virtual team scattered across the globe. Or you may be part of a team responsible for expanding your business into a growing market, such as China or India.

We could go on to discuss the opportunities available to meet and work with people from different cultures, but the purpose of this chapter is to explain how cultural differences are relevant in the world of work. Take, for example, an Englishman trying to do business in Japan. The Englishman asks the Japanese purchasing manager whether he agrees with the price and wants to proceed with the order, and the answer is ‘yes’. The Englishman returns home and waits for the order, but it never ...

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